alt Hacker NewsIsraeli-founded app preloaded on Samsung phones is attracting controversy
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SpyApps everywhere.
Hopefully one day we not only have open software, open hardware but also reproducibly guaranteed secure systems. Now I don't have any idea how this could be verified (and no, Microsoft's "Trusted Computing" is not what I have in mind), but I hope we'll see to this eventually.
I recently bought a cheap android device because I needed to test something on Android. The setup was about 3 hours of the device starting up, asking me questions, installing apps I explicitly told it not to, and then all sorts of other apps and OS updates trying to do their thing seemingly at once. I wasn't even transferring data, just a brand new phone, new google account.
What a horrible experience you get with some providers and phones.
It's to the point that I think there should be some sort of regulation that involves you getting a baseline experience on the OS rather than a bunch of malware out of the box.
low quality website "sammobile" wanted to recycle news from 2011 which is essentially "samsung packs their phone full of bloatware" so they sprayed some israel over it. Now they got all those angry clicks and they have made their honest pay.
but why is HN playing along?
So a Unity owned bloatware company being used by Samsung is now somehow controversial because it was founded in Israel? Am i reading this right?
TL;DR Article claims AppCloud (software in question) has ties to ironSource, an Israeli-founded company now owned by US-based Unity, but never clarifies what those ties are. The author only states that an ironSource tech called "Aura" appears to do something similar to AppCloud. However, the author also points out that AppCloud isn't listed anywhere on ironSource's website. They also acknowledge that there's no evidence currently that AppCloud is doing anything weird. This looks an awful lot like an "Israel bad" article.
Well, apps probably won't explode.
Why do android phone companies load up the bloatware on their phones? Why can't they provide a plain vanilla version of android and let users to choose the stuff?
AppCloud is not only in India. It is on some OEM version of the phone in the US as well.
How did I know? My phone had random notifications promoting apps that I had never heard of, and I couldn't find a way to disable them. Eventually I found and removed it via adb.
These scumbags.
I bought an Ipad yesterday. The setup was almost the same, except all the bloat was from Apple itself. Numbers, GarageBand, iMovie, Keynote, Pages, Clips… even the Tips app felt like bloatware.
Wild how every ecosystem has its own "preloaded surprise pack."
Edited. This seems to be according worldwide despite the article saying it's in West Asia and Africa.
Even worse is that Samsung phones, at least in my region, come with a "Samsung Global Goals" app installed by default; an app that serves to push a certain political agenda that many find unpalatable. Imagine if your new Xiaomi phone came with an app telling you how good the CCP is.
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…and this, and similar stories, continues to be why I will never trust or own an Android phone.
What’s striking is how often these ‘small’ surveillance tech stories trace back to the same state-aligned ecosystem. When Israel does it, it’s treated as a complex security issue. When another ‘bad’ country does the same thing, we immediately call it espionage. And almost on cue, the discussion drifts anywhere except the uncomfortable fact that it’s the same ecosystem from the same country showing up again.